The stuff that Spring is made of

Ahh, the wonderful smells and sights of Hyacinth blooming. When the wind dies down this entire area is intoxicating with the fragrance of Hyacinthus Orientalis 'Splendid Cornelia'. This little rock wall is a nice place to sit take in the scenery. These Hyacinth are right at their peak.

Chris and I spent a few hours getting this bed cleared out of overgrown Yellow Loosestrife and Garden Phlox. The Loosestrife was so rampant that it was growing underneath the siding of the house. Luckily it is very easy to remove after a good rain. The purple Garden Phlox, which was beautiful last year, was just too thick and (gasp!) there was too much of it in one spot.
If the wind would die down for one day, I am going to get it all covered in newspaper and leaf mulch to hopefully suppress any strays from coming up. The great thing about digging in this soil was the large quantities of worms that we found. Every handful held two or three wigglers, it was great!!

I was able to finally start dragging out some of my warm weather garden goodies, such as these hypertufa leaves made last year. They are perfect additions to my new drainage area, covering up the spout perfectly.

I don't normally buy any annual flowers, but couldn't pass up these pretty pansy's. I love this color! To me, this color epitomizes Spring.

I pulled out a couple of geraniums that I overwintered in a paper bag in the garage this winter. This is the first time that I have tried this, so I am not only excited that it is time to get them going, I am also very skeptical that this really works. We will see.


Of course, I am not done seed starting. This is Lavendula angustifolia 'Lavender, Lady'. I am not skeptical about this growing at all. Having grown many Lavender plants from seed over the years, I am excited to have some planted here. What beautiful blooms and wonderful fragrance they produce. I have even been able to make sachet bundles from them.

Virginia Blue Bells are popping up at the bottom of the hill like crazy, so I remembered that I wanted to move some of them topside this year. A delicate plant that will go dormant after blooming, it is critical to move them as young as possible. So far I have dug up a dozen of them and put most of them around the edge of this front flower bed. These will be beautiful to see out the front window.

This is how they looked last year. Imagine my surprise to find this wonderful mass of them, this picture only showing a quarter of them.